Should Teachers Throw Out Grades?
Should schools throw out grades? It turns out there is not much evidence for grading: grades are proven to dampen creativity, courage, and enthusiasm. In the subgroup of Facebook, “Teachers for throwing out grades,” thousands of teachers propose strategies for dismantling grades. But what ought we to offer in place of them? In lieu of numerical grades, some un-grading practice include grading students on labor/effort, student self-assessment, or peer-assessment. I believe these have a place in the well-rounded classroom, and yet they beg the question: what are students assessing their peers on?
To change our approach to assessment we must first change our approach to learning. Sadly, many classrooms premised on assessment focus so much time on skill-preparation, they can miss out on opportunities for students to ask questions, explore connections to other topics, or deepen their understanding of the current topic. When I’ve focused my classroom on preparing for a skill-based assessment, the lessons feel small, isolating, and unemotional.
In contrast, in my experience, the classes I learned the most from had a few characteristics in common: they were immersive, collaborative, and emotional.
Immersive – For some classes, this was immersion in a text or set of texts, or a deep philosophical question like “How do we measure scientific progress?” For other classes, the immersion was moving the classroom into the world. I recall an intensive care physician holding up bags of normal saline and asking student to calculate their sodium concentration.
Collaborative – In medicine, the concept of “team-based learning” has caught on across nearly all US medical schools. The traditional model of an individual taking isolated notes, and regurgitating them is starting to wane.
Emotional –My biggest failures in preparing students for exams is understanding their emotional reactions to taking tests. For some its dread, and for others its indifference or fatigue. I say “Because it will prepare you for a life a testing” both seriously and with a sinking heart.
When class is immersive, collaborative and emotional, I find students rarely even bring up grades, as there is a natural urge for students to go deeper and understand the material. Meanwhile, I notice grades become an extrinsic focus when the classroom becomes dull: “how worth it is it for me to complete this?” is what students seem to ask.
As I reflect on changing my grading model from a “traditional” (1-100 scale), to a standards-based (grading on a scale of 1-4 based on competency) and un-grading model (providing primarily written, formative feedback), I wonder how much I’m buying into the buzz around grading. When I learned the Saxophone, no-look passes in basketball, or how to do quantum mechanics, I didn’t care about grades. I cared about the teacher, the practice, and excellence in-and-of-itself. Yes, some grading may capture these pursuits, but it certainly won’t inspire them.
Site for "Teacher's Throwing Out Grades" https://www.facebook.com/groups/teachersthrowingoutgrades/